Other 2008 cars-parent cars Lincoln Continental & Dodge

[ah8tk]

For the parent-sibling race I made our other 2 old cars, Noah had the 3rd old car for his car The 2008 car - a 1966 Marlin.

My car was the Lincoln, I have had this car a long time (I purchased the original car in 1983) and it was restored in 1990 for our wedding.









The van should have been the pine block with balsa wood attached to the top and sides, but instead I thought I could use pine and get it light enough to race. When I went to hollow the van to get it to race weight, I hollowed all I could and it was still almost 7 oz. without paint. So it was built to display with the others.










So Diane had to race the Stingray car I built for the pinewood car building display. (I saw the display originally on the Max Velocity site and I wanted to build one, and then after I saw another one on this site well…).





I was in charge of purchasing a new aluminum track this year for the pinewood derby. On Friday the 11th, at 7:00, we went to set it up the new track for the derby on the 12th, we had previously set up the track and the electronics the previous Sunday to make sure everything was there and working before the derby. The track was setup in about an hour and we used our last years cars (Cars the Movie) to test the electronics, the first race everything worked great. We ran again and the results said the cars made it to the finish line in .1 seconds and were doing a scale 5 million MPH. We tested and disconnected and reconnected everything multiple times and could get it to work every once in a while. Someone thought it could be a bad magnetic switch, so at 11:30 I went home to get another one the new switch worked once, and then nothing. Someone noticed the finish line was not flashing its green LED when the electronics reset when it was not working. I asked the person who was storing the old track go home and get the old electronics. We used some of the new and some of the old and we got it to work every time.

So after leaving the ministry center at 1:00 am I had to go home and put the wheels on our 2 cars and get them aligned. At about 4:30 my lovely wife asked if I was going to sleep at all, I told her if I got everything done I would sleep, if not I would not. I got the last one finished at 5:00 so I went to bed.

We had a great race day with plenty of help and everything went flawlessly. I received 1st place In the Parent/Sibling race (out of 20 cars entered).

[CM924]

Your cars are works of art. What are you using for the grills and license plates? Is it decals or paint. If decals where are you getting them, if paint I don't know what to even say.

[ah8tk]

The grilles and license plates are drawn decals. The only thing that was painted was the taillights on the Lincoln as the decal ones I had drawn did not fit right, and I did not want to have to remake only one decal. The grille on the Lincoln is mostly chrome so I placed a piece of aluminum foil tape down and then I placed a clear decal with the black lines, squares and headlights over the top to get the grille to look like it does.

[jeffd]

FWIW - I use this site for license plates
http://www.acme.com/licensemaker/licens ... 1429935791

they have many states and different years for each state. Just resize and glue on the cars.

[CM924]

Thanks Jeffd that is awesome. Do you print them on regular paper or something special?

[jeffd]

Well, i just did regular paper with white elmers glue. Came out pretty nice though i am sure someone else would have a semi reflective paper that would better simulate an actual license plate

[keithg30]

Was just wandering where you got the drawing for the cars or if you had drawn them up yourself.....Was wanting to do a 60's mustang ..

[ah8tk]

All of the drawings are made by me. This way I can adjust the cars to fit with the wheel openings. If you have pictures of the front, back and the one side I could possibly make a drawing of a car for you.

[GLPack21]

Awesome! I love the Continental, what a classic. Beautiful construction, and you gave me some ideas for next year's cars, thanks!

Cheers,
Griff

[3604Speed]

ah8tk,
Your cars are works of art! What program do you use to make the drawings of your cars? Is this computer program something i could purchase locally for my computer?? Keep up the great work!

[ah8tk]

The plans were drawn using Microsoft Visio http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/default.aspx it is great when you need a drawing that you may have to rescale, it also has layers so you can display only the information you need. And it is way easier to use than AutoCAD (but not as versatile, I use both for different applications).

[3604Speed]

Thanks for the info......I think i may need to check this Visio out. I see the have a free trial offer. I imagine it has limited functionality.
Keep up the great work.

P.S. those are some great "in construction" type pictures. Sure does help the beginners such as myself.......thanks loads.

[ciodude]

ah8tk I envy not only your derby cars but your drawing skills! Amazing! May I ask what you use in the primer stage? Is the grayish cover just a normal primer or something special?

[ah8tk]

The primer is Plasti-Kote sandable primer http://www.plasti-kote.com/plastikote/a ... ablePrimer it dries quick and can be sanded smooth. I think any sandable primer would work to fill in small imperfections on the pine body. Then the primer is sanded smooth down to 400 grit sandpaper (the smoother the base the smoother the paintjob). But I have noticed some imperfections still come through on some of our older pinewood paint jobs.

Andy